“Do People Shape Their Own Lives, or Are our Lives Shaped by External Factors Beyond our Control?

Stop toxic positivity!

I’d say both, but NOT in equal parts. Based on my experience, our life is shaped mainly by external factors out of our control. Then, those factors can be shaped modestly by how we respond to them. We can tame adverse circumstances to a certain extent. But there’s a limit to what we can do about it.

Case in point: me.

I didn’t choose to have this pool of genes — anxiety, depression, agoraphobia and fibromyalgia are not things I decided to have! They came with my body. I consider them external factors because they are out of my control.

They have shaped my life.

What I do on Empathy Café, blogging about my health (mental, physical and spiritual) journey, is what I can control. I chose to acknowledge the complex emotions I have and talk about them. I don’t cancel them with toxic positivity.

Saying that we can control everything and shape our lives with an optimistic approach *all* the time is toxic, IMHO. There’s no way we can control *everything.*

If the term is new to you, Toxic Positivity is the excessive and harmful focus on only positive emotions and rejecting or invalidating negative emotions, often leading to avoidance or denial of real problems.

Who knows, when I think about it, maybe depression lenses tint my view, and I’m talking nonsense. I’m open to your feedback ツ